DL Open Thread: Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Meyer’s Choice For Inspector General Looks Like A Home Run Pick:

Gov. Matt Meyer nominates Robert Storch to be Delaware’s first Inspector General.

Storch has been the IG of federal agencies like the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense, appointed to those positions by former Presidents Obama and Biden respectively.

Storch remained in his role at the DOD until January 2025, when he and several other inspectors general were fired by President Donald Trump, the legality of which is still in question.

Gov. Meyer says he’s confident a “seasoned veteran” like Storch will ensure transparency and accountability across all levels of government in the First State,

“For far too long, Delaware’s institutions have lacked the independent oversight that Delawareans deserve,” he said in a statement.

A $185 Mill Shortfall For The Port?  An ongoing money pit:

Delaware’s longstanding plans to expand the Port of Wilmington with a new container terminal in Edgemoor will cost millions more than previously estimated, forcing the state and its private port operator, Enstructure, into negotiations over how to cover a $185 million funding gap.

During a meeting Monday of the state board that oversees the Port of Wilmington, Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez publicly revealed the financial gap when announcing that current plans to construct the container terminal would cost $669 million — an amount to be split between Delaware and Enstructure.

Still, the total cost is higher than previous estimates for more ambitious proposals — a result of increases in equipment costs, integrating clean technologies, tariffs, and other inflationary pressures, she said.

The increased costs also mark the latest financial shift for what has been an embattled port expansion project, first promised in 2018 as one that would be funded entirely with private-sector dollars.

On Monday, Patibanda-Sanchez — who serves as chair of the port oversight board — said the portion of the additional costs to be absorbed by taxpayers will be determined in negotiations with Enstructure.

She said she expects those to happen in good faith “and hopefully very quickly.”

Going out on a limb–this will be only the latest budget shortfall.  More budget shortfalls to come.

Down Goes Chavez-DeRemer:

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, the administration announced Monday, after a series of alleged abuses of her position’s power, including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job.

Chavez-DeRemer is the third Trump Cabinet member to leave her post after Trump fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month.

Unlike other recent Cabinet departures, Chavez-DeRemer’s exit was announced by a White House aide, not by the president on his social media account.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector,” White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. “She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives.”

Well, that’s a demonstrable lie.  As in:

Aside from reports of wrongdoing in recent months, Chavez-DeRemer had been one of Trump’s more lower-profile Cabinet picks, but took key steps to advance the administration’s deregulatory agenda during her tenure.

For instance, the Labor Department last year moved to rewrite or repeal more than 60 workplace regulations it saw as obsolete. The rollbacks included minimum wage requirements for home health care workers and people with disabilities, and rules governing exposure to harmful substances and safety procedures at mines. The effort drew condemnation from union leaders and workplace safety experts.

Kash Patel, come on down!

The Case Of The Missing Trump Library Funds:

Last year, four huge companies pledged tens of millions of dollars to help fund the creation of Donald Trump’s presidential library, a planned monstrosity in Miami that—in a perfect Trumpian twist—may also double as a hotel. The companies—ABC; Paramount; Meta; and X, formerly Twitter—entered into the agreements with Trump to settle legal cases he’d brought against them which experts had dismissed as dubious.

After the companies agreed to these shakedowns—sorry, settlements—the fund created to receive donations was dissolved last September. Since then, Senate Democrats have been asking: What happened to the money?

Now there’s been an important new turn in this saga. The four companies have provided fresh information to Senate Democrats in written responses to their questions. For these Democrats, those responses—obtained by The New Republic—raise more questions than they answer.

In these formal replies, all four companies confirmed that they did pledge that money to Trump’s library—itself a notable development. More importantly, however, the Democrats say the responses reveal that the money is still largely unaccounted for.

“Not one of these companies can say with any clarity where their multi-million-dollar donations to Donald Trump’s library slush fund are, or where they will go,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s taken the lead in tracking this money, tells me in a statement.

Let’s talk about the money! The companies all settled lawsuits with Trump after his 2024 victory: Paramount for $16 million over a claim of fraudulent editing by CBS; Meta for $25 million and X for around $10 million over supposed censorship of Trump; and ABC for $15 million over alleged defamation. Experts criticized the lawsuits as weak and denounced the settlements as akin to extortion payments.

Under those settlements, the companies donated virtually all that money to the library project, totaling at least $63 million. But then the fund where most of that money appeared to be directed—the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund—was dissolved by Florida officials amid the failure to file a required annual report.

Molly Claflin, a lawyer who represents people targeted in congressional investigations, points out that without more transparency, there’s no way to know whether the transfer to the foundation is even happening. “It should be simple enough for the Trump team to show the legal transfer,” Claflin says.

We all know that somehow a good chunk of this money is finding its way into Trump’s pockets.  The normalization of corruption on such a massive scale is one of Trump’s most poisonous legacies.

What do you want to talk about?